Musicians throughout the world are familiar with and treasure our blue Urtext editions – top quality editions of great classical compositions. Urtext and Henle are synonymous. The musician is offered a musical text which solely reflects the composer’s intentions.

Mr. Gunter`s suggested fingerings are entirely logical from a violinistic point of view with slurs and phrasing always in style. (It is interesting to compare earlier editions that contained many more shifts and less than exemplary slurring). His cadenza is an amalgam of several well-known examles while he also adds his own embellishments to the main motifs of each movement. The short improvisatory lead-ins back to the main theme in the last movement are fluidly and imaginatively written. This is altogether a painstaking, carefullys crafted account of the solo part.Siegfried Petrenz`s piano reduction is sufficiently abundant in harmony while the texture remains clearer than earlier versions that were more closely based on the orchestral writing. The keyboard part indicates the relevant instrumentation (for example, horns, oboes, violas and general tuttis)As is usually the case with Henle, this new publication is spacious in layout with well-organized page turns and meticulous attention to detail. [Music Teacher Magazine]

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The levels of difficulty of the music for violin published by G. Henle Publishers

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

easy

medium

difficult

The levels of difficulty of the violin music published by G. Henle Publishers

Level

Degree

Example

1

easy

Beethoven, 6 German Dances WoO 42

2

Beethoven, Rondo G major WoO 41

3

Mozart, Violin Sonata F major KV 547

4

medium

Haydn, Violin Concerto A major Hob. VIIa:3

5

Bach, Violin Concerto a minor BWV 1041

6

Brahms, Violin Sonata G major op. 78

7

difficult

Paganini, No. 9 from Capricci op. 1

8

Beethoven, Violin Concerto D major op. 61

9

Berg, Violin Concerto

I have assigned all of the violin music in G. Henle Publishers' catalogue a level of difficulty, ranging from "very easy" to "very difficult". The model for this was the evaluation system with nine levels developed for Henle's piano catalogue by Rolf Koenen. Unlike the works for solo piano, I have decided against evaluations that lie between two levels (e.g. 4/5 or 7/8).

This kind of attempt will always be "relative" to some degree. While the work remains the work, what is relative is the technical and musical ability of the player. Let us take a look at Mozart, for example, from the perspective of an Arthur Grumiaux and from that of a very young pupil. It is clear to whom my levels of difficulty are addressed: to the pupils or their teacher. I have, of course, always endeavoured to objectively assess the purely technical level of difficulty. But everything "between the lines" is, of course, left up to the judgement of each individual musician. Depending on our abilities, we perceive the "difficulty" of a work for violin differently, yet with the same conviction.

At the start, categorizing violin literature into levels of difficulty from 1 to 9 seemed to carry a certain risk as well as being unknown territory, yet I have now gained a deep insight into all of the works for violin in G. Henle Publishers' catalogue.